In 1990, Bernard Lewis famously wrote about "the roots of Muslim rage". The essay, along with other influential works produced in the 1980s and 90s, helped usher in an era of commentary about extremism and political violence in the Muslim-majority world.

Lewis' work, like that of other orientalist scholars and analysts, downplayed western imperialism and aggression and was plagued by essentialism, exaggeration and distortion.

Amid holy war on Iran, will the West examine the roots of Christian and Jewish rage?

BY Mohamad Elmasry

Nonetheless, some of the scholarship that followed - particularly work examining militant groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) - addressed a very real phenomenon. These fringe Muslim extremist groups have inflicted massive violence, and scholars and analysts have understandably sought to examine the political, socioeconomic, and religious factors that undergird their extremist ideologies.

Christian and Jewish extremism, in contrast, has garnered comparatively little attention.

While the majority of Christians and Jews reject extremist interpretations of their religious traditions, it is nonetheless important to interrogate extremist interpretations of Christianity and Judaism, particularly as they are used to justify war, territorial expansion and military policies that target civilians.

The US-Israel war on Iran - increasingly justified through extremist Christian and Jewish theological narratives - may finally force a conversation about the roots of Christian and Jewish rage.

Israeli and American political leaders, military figures, and policymakers have not hidden the religious underpinnings of the current war on Iran.

Last week, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham called the conflict "a religious war", while North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer said that the United States has "a biblical responsibility to Israel".

According to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), US military commanders have repeatedly invoked Christianity and the Bible as motivations for war.

Since the start of hostilities, the MRFF said it has received hundreds of complaints from dozens of military units across all four branches of the armed forces.

One commander reportedly told his troops that the Iran war was "part of God's divine plan" and that US President Donald Trump has been "anointed by Jesus" to fight the war in order to "cause Armageddon".

Although military commanders and senators do not necessarily make war policy, they do influence the political environment in which decisions are made. Graham, for example, reportedly played an important role in convincing Trump to attack.

Religious language has also appeared directly among other influential American policymakers, in the context of the Iran conflict and beyond.

In June 2025, during the first US-Israel war with Iran, Texas Senator Ted Cruz described support for Israel as a biblical mandate. He said: "I was taught from the Bible, those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed."

Cruz is an outspoken pro-Israel voice in the Senate, sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and frequently defends Trump's Middle East policy programmes.

In the context of the current war, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has likewise acknowledged the role of religion in his political thinking. At a press briefing on 2 March, he said he was praying for "biblical wisdom" as decisions about the war are made.

Hegseth's political views have long been reflected in biblical interpretations of Middle East politics. He authored a 2020 book arguing for an "American crusade" to push back against the influence of Islam.

During a 2018 speech in Jerusalem, Hegseth, then a co-host of a popular Fox News morning programme, advocated for pursuing what he called a biblical "miracle": the rebuilding of a Jewish temple at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam.

At the time, Hegseth said that a "step in that process... is recognition that... activities on the ground truly matter. That's why... visiting Judea and Samaria and understanding that sovereignty - the very sovereignty of Israeli soil - is a critical next step to showing the world that this is the land for Jews and the land of Israel."

Such views closely mirror ideas that have circulated within Israeli politics since its founding.

Hegseth, who has Islamophobic and Crusader-inspired tattoos on his body, also once repeatedly shouted "kill all Muslims" at a bar.

Trump's personal religiosity is a subject of debate, but he is surrounded by numerous controversial evangelical leaders, including Pastor John Hagee, whose organisation Christians United for Israel has long promoted biblical justificationsfor Israeli territorial expansion, and Paula White, a Trump spiritual adviser who has framed Middle East conflicts in biblical terms. Last week, as the war on Iran was in full swing, White and other evangelical pastors gathered at the Oval Office, placing their hands on Trump's shoulders and arms and praying for his protection and guidance.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly invoked biblical narratives to justify territorial expansion and military action.

In September 2023, just prior to the war that started on 7 October, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed the United Nations General Assembly a map of "The New Middle East" depicting expanded Israeli borders.

In an August 2025 interview with Israeli television, Netanyahu said he felt "very much" connected to the vision of "Greater Israel" - a biblical conception of Israel's borders stretching from Iraq to Egypt.

Israeli ministers, including Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have also consistently used the Bible to advocate for the expansion of Israel's borders.

Support for biblical territorial claims is not limited to Israel's right wing. At a February press conference, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, a centrist, said that "the biblical borders of Israel are very clear".

The "Greater Israel" vision also resonates in American political circles, including within the Trump administration. In February, Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel and an evangelical pastor, told Tucker Carlson that "it would be fine if Israel took" all of the land of the Middle East.

Netanyahu has also framed the war in explicitly messianic terms. At a press conference last week, he said Israel would "reach the kingdom" and make it to "the Messiah's return", adding "we will make it to the return of the Messiah, but this will not happen next Thursday".

Biblical imagery has also appeared in Israeli rhetoric surrounding war, including in Gaza and Iran.

Netanyahu has repeatedly invoked the Amalek verse from the Bible to justify Israeli violence. The Amalekites are a biblical people whom 1 Samuel 15:3 commands the Israelites to completely destroy, including men, women and infants.

In October 2023, Netanyahu said: "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible." At the time, Raz Segal, an Israeli-American scholar of holocaust and genocide studies, said that Netanyahu's comment was evidence of intent to commit genocide.

Other Israeli officials and military leaders also routinely invokedthe Bible and religious discourse to justify killing Palestinians in Gaza.

Last week, Netanyahu referenced Amalek again in the context of the war on Iran, saying: "Remember what Amalek did to you."

These statements have been delivered in the context of military policies that have resulted in large-scale civilian deaths.

In Gaza, the Israeli army routinely targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure. One military programme named "Where's Daddy?" called for the Israeli military to wait for Hamas members to return home at night and then strike their apartment buildings while they were sleeping, killing entire extended families in a single strike.

Another policy, sometimes called the 100:1 ratio, reportedly allowed Israeli forces to kill "more than 100" civilians when targeting a single Hamas commander.

Israel has also operated on the basis of the "Dahiyeh doctrine", named after a suburb of Beirut. Its architect, Gadi Eisenkot, said the policy was designed specifically to punish civilians by applying "disproportionate force" to residential areas, causing enough suffering that they would turn against their leaders.

The Iran campaign may be following a similar pattern. The World Health Organization said that 13 hospitals and health facilities have been struck so far, and five elementary and middle schools have also been attacked. More than 1,300people were reportedly killed in Iran in the war's first several days, including more than 150 schoolgirls in a strike on a school.

Hegseth promised recently to rain "death and destruction from the sky [of Iran] all day long", noting elsewhere that "the only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians who think they're going to live".

Imagine the reaction if two Muslim states launched a joint military operation on a non-Muslim society, with political leaders invoking Islamic scripture as justification for the war, and that operation struck 13 health facilities and five schools and killed 150 schoolgirls in the first week.

The global reaction would be swift and unambiguous. Analysts would have decades of scholarship - dating back to Lewis and the orientalists who preceded him - to draw upon when examining the role of religious motivations.

But when American and Israeli leaders invoke biblical narratives while waging war, the religious dimension is only an afterthought in mainstream western analysis and media.

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US and Israel are fighting against "religious fanatic lunatics".

Perhaps they are.

But what then are we to say about the political and military leaders who are attacking Iran - and who have destroyed Gaza - while invoking Christian and Jewish scripture?

Hegseth closed with a prayer at a Tuesday press briefing. He said: "I'll close with scripture. Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle... He is my loving God and my fortress... my shield in whom I take refuge."

Religion is certainly not the only factor at work in US and Israeli war policy. But given how prominently religion figures in the discourse and thinking of important decision-makers in both countries, it is fair to ask why those religious motivations are not interrogated with the same vigour that scholars have long applied to "the roots of Muslim rage".

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/amid-holy-war-iran-will-west-examine-roots-christian-jewish-rage

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SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maXGRRn23Tw